Hylozoic by Rudy Rucker

are completely different aliens from Pekka and her agent? And different from the flying manta rays—assuming those are real?”
    â€œThe mantas are real,” said Gaia. “But they’re hard to see. They camouflage themselves very well. I think they’re enemies of Pekka, so that’s all to the good.”
    â€œThis is nuts,” said Thuy. “Why did you let all these weird aliens come after my husband?”
    â€œWell, Lovva the harp’s been very nice to us—she unfurled my eighth dimension, after all. So I thought that whatever herhusband, Groovy, did would be good, too. And there’s something else. Your and Jayjay’s timelines are somehow very deeply knotted with the timelines of Lovva and Groovy.”
    â€œOh, great,” said Thuy.
    â€œIt’s not all bad,” said Gaia. “I never knew that people could travel to lazy eight infinity via the subdimensions, and last night Jayjay got partway there. The problem is that when he and the pitchfork stopped, the pitchfork incarnated a Pekklet and, as you know, the Pekklet is puppeteering Jayjay.”
    â€œSo find the Pekklet,” said Thuy. “Kill her. I mean, she’s living right inside one of our floorboards. Come to think of it, I can pull up the board and burn it.”
    â€œRearranging a few molecules isn’t going to change anything,” said Gaia. “The Pekklet is ten tridecillion levels down into the subdimensions. It’s as if she were deep undersea where no storms can reach.”
    â€œSo dive in after her,” insisted Thuy. “Find her!”
    â€œBut the beanstalk is gone now,” said Gaia. “So there’s no obvious path to the Pekklet.”
    â€œCan’t you do a sweep of the subdimensions?”
    â€œYou don’t understand about subdimensional space,” said Gaia. “It’s exponentially large. The level where the Pekklet’s hiding isn’t just bigger than our universe, it’s bigger than ten to the power of our universe.”
    â€œI’m not a scientist.”
    â€œLet’s just say that unless one of you manages to aktualize yourself and get an infinite mind, there’s no hope of finding the Pekklet.”
    â€œSo now what?” asked Thuy. “How do we fix my husband?”
    â€œI foresee a struggle,” said Gaia, flipping her seaweed hair. A school of tiny, metallic-blue fish quivered amid the stalks. “I’m a rich prize. I have a highly evolved ecosystem and an unfurled eighth dimension. And it seems that, across the galaxies,humanoids are quite rare and valuable. You’re one of the very few types of beings who can teleport or teek.”
    â€œSo the alien birds want us, huh?” said Thuy. “And the pitchfork is helping them out. I wonder if Mabel was right. Maybe the army
should
nuke Yolla Bolly.”
    â€œThe filthy nukes are gone,” said Gaia. “I disintegrated all of the atomic weapons on Lazy Eight Day when the silps awoke. Your so-called leaders are covering that up. They want to keep you scared of them. But I can perfectly well wipe out Yolla Bolly and San Francisco without nukes.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?” asked Thuy.
    â€œI’m able to control my lava flows and to shift my tectonic plates. I can place volcanoes at will. Vaporizing the Yolla Bolly wilderness won’t destroy the Pekklet, but it’ll definitely disperse the atoms that Jayjay infected. I might even tip California into the sea.”
    â€œBut explosions of that size . . .”
    The womanly blue figure of Gaia laughed ruefully, now more like the sky than the sea. A series of jeweled beetles sprang into flight around her cloudy head. “The firestorms, smoke, and dust could well make some of the higher organisms extinct,” she said, expressively softening her hands into tentacles. “But—species come and go. What I’m a little worried about is